The Bramble Scrub
The bramble banks provide nectaring sites for a host of insects, shelter for rabbits and breeding birds and fruit as food for small mammals and birds. They also provide effective tree guards for developing saplings: amongst the brambles are field maple, ash, oak, hawthorn, walnut and other maturing saplings. In addition to these, there are a variety of other flora within this scrub.
These banks complement the grassland of Croft Close Nature Reserve. To protect the grassland these banks are not allowed to spread.
As time goes by the banks get higher. The saplings within them start developing into young trees while under the canopy of bramble leaves an impoverished matrix of dead and denuded stems remains. In line with the BCN Wildlife Trust advice, the banks are periodically refreshed.
This involves removing the core of a selected bank during one winter, cutting the vegetation to ground level. A perimeter strip about 2m thick is left to retain the general landform. This strip is then removed once there is a good stand of regenerated vegetation in the core.
To maximise the value of the bramble canopy layer, where practical the banks are shaped to have re-entrant “gullies” cut into them, so creating sheltered areas and extra “edge”. In doing so, the depth of gully cut into the bank is such that continuity of the bramble bank is retained. This allows wildlife to traverse the brambles unhindered.
In and around Flower Green the brambles have encroached to create a series of gardener’s “rooms”. Elsewhere, notably in the high scrub along the woodland edges, there are small grassy glades. Both provide shelter and potentially opportunity for some species to prosper that would not do so in the more open grassy expanses and so are being retained at their current extent.